Shadow of the trees
by Fox of the Last Temple
Summary: Growing up in the middle of a war that has been raging for centuries,the two heirs on opposing sides want nothing more than to stop the bloodshed.But with betrayal running rampant,broken hearts scaring both families and assassins running loose,is there just too much blood spilled between the two to reconcile?Will legends of old come true or will they write their own bloody history?
1. Prolouge

OK, i know you guys are impatient about 'What the wind hears' but i have been forced to abandon my writing in the last few weeks of school so that i could focus on my EOCs... I hate teat. Anyway, I had the idea of taking on of my favorite books and loosely copying it into my own Naruto story. The main points are the same and all, i borrowed some words, so give credit where credit is due.. all bow to the Author of Hawksong, Amelia Atwater- Rhodes... and the autor of Naruto, whoever he may be...i can never remember the name. so here is the Prologue of Shadows of the Trees to keep you guys company till i can finish a chapter of my other stories.

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Prologue

_'They say the first of my kind was a woman named Haruko, a human abandoned by her own people and raised by a tigress who had just lost her youngest cub to the sport humans called hunting. She learned the language of all the great cats that hid in the shadowed mountains, and as time passed, she helped them in many ways to repay them for their kindness. They feared that she would soon repay her dept and leave them, not understanding that there was no value one could hold to a life and that she would have followed them to the end of the world if they had asked. To keep her bound to them, as both a blessing and a curse, they gave her the form of a tigress, forever condemning her...'_

I closed the book and lifted the lid of the oaken chest that sat at the foot of my bed so that I could return it to its original home among the rest of my books. It was a beautiful story, I admit, but hardly fitting for this era in which my kind now lives. Few believe it anyway. The time of such magic has long passed, faded as the pages of time turn ever quicker, so eager to bury the past under the thin layers, and so eager to reach the future that it does not notice when some pages are occasionally lost. No record remains of Haruko's life. No proof to show that this story has even the shred of truth- except for the eyes of every Felinya that can see through the darkness as well as in the light, when we otherwise appear human, and the brute strength and grace my line has walked with and possessed for as long as anyone could remember, and the form of a beautiful tigress that is as natural to me as the legs and arms I wear normally.

I sigh and return to my writing desk, turning my head so that I may watch the sun as it set on another day, wishing for the days when such storied are told to children once more, when laughter is heard till the late hours of the night, when there is no longer a reason to weep for those uncounted dead. This story has been cast aside by many parents because it does not teach their children the important things in this life. Almost before a child of my kind learns to pounce, she learns to hate. She learns of war. She learns of the great battlefield deep in the south where our soldiers go to die. They learn of their family, brothers, sisters, uncles, mothers and fathers who died fighting against creatures that call themselves shinobi, who control the elements of the natural world and the energy within themselves in order to create chaos and wreak havoc upon the land. She learns that they are masters of disguise, untrustworthy by nature, and she learns all the names their kind go by because the second thing we are taught is that half of the world consist of names, and to give something a name, or to know it's existing name is to have some control over it and those things around it. They are all liars, we learn, ninja, kunochi, Kage, shinobi, leaf, sand, water, rain, stone, grass…..sound. All loyal to no one except themselves and their goals, maybe they say they tie themselves to a Kage, or leader, or king, but all of my kind knows that such promises are false and as humans they will forever focus on themselves before all others.

All of my kind learns to fear their abilities, as well as their bodies for, as we have leaned through experience, they have small families called 'clans'. Each clan is in possession of a different ability, one clan has the ability to adjust their bones underneath the shin, creating shield and weapon both but slowly poisoning the user. Another we have rarely heard reports of is a clan from the deep forest whose eyes are like pearls. Before these eyes the world is laid bare for the user to see, every hidden soldier, strength and weakness. The most revered among the creatures we fight, the most feared, is the royal family who controls those with pearl eyes. They rule their kingdom deep in the shadows of the farthest forest, their red eyes unaffected by the shadows they hide in. The ability to twist the mind and move with snake-like grace is theirs alone, and they seem to have an affinity for fire. Thankfully most of their numbers were wiped out long ago by some forgotten force. They rarely venture onto the battlefields now.

We learn all this at such a young age, yet we are never told why we fight or how the war began no matter how much we ask. That has been forgotten by even the oldest of us, time has taken the memories away. But time also gives, and we have learned form it that the ways of the shinobi are not our own, how they murdered our loved ones, and how they will not hesitate to kill us, to wipe our kind from existence. I rub my tired emerald eyes, aching now from the long days spent looking over battle plans. This is all we learn, this is all I have learned. I pick up my brush, dipping the end into the black ink and pausing a moment for it to absorb enough for the few words I am about to write. I am tired, so tired. It has been days since I have slept. 'We are in a war,' I think as I press the brush to the smooth rice paper scroll, 'we can sleep when we are all dead.'

'_Days and weeks and years, all I know now is bloodshed.'_

I hum the songs my mother once sang to me and pray, in my half-sleeping state, to Kami for the peace they promise. It is a peace my mother has never know, and her mother before her. How many generations? How many of our soldiers fallen? And why? Meaningless hatred: a hatred of an enemy without a face. No one knows why we fight; they only know we will continue until we win a war it is too late to win, until we have avenged too many dead to avenge, until no one can remember peace anymore, even in songs. I continue writing, fighting against the sleep….

'_Days and weeks and years,_

_My brother never returned last night._

_Days and weeks and years,_

_How long until their assassins find me?'_

_~Sakura Haruno, _

_Heir to the Throne and Crown of the Far North Mountains_

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PLEASE RATE! i need some encouragement over here! i would love to hear thoughts and recomendations.


	2. Losing one, finding another

Chapter 1

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and ignored, with some difficulty, the smells the mêlée had brought to my land. The odor of death as it lingered in the air above those it struck far after their souls had departed; once the smell of death left, the scent of decay would rein. Both were too familiar to me, and both hated me, I think. Death pried lives from under my healing hands while I was forced to watch, struggling to deprive it of the one thing it needed to exist. I watched the light fade from solder's eyes as decay triggered infection that would fell a soldier just as quickly as a shinobi's kunai. The smell of hot feline blood splattered on stone, the cooler human blood that seemed ready to dissolve the skin off my hand if I touched it, the smell of burnt skin and hair and fur of the dead that smoldered in the fire. There had been an Uchiha among the enemy's fighters last night. A young one, but still… flames are flames that burn all those it can, feeding on friend or foe. Even if the rain had not put the fire out, I doubt it would have spread far for the rocks had still been whet from the last storm when news of the fight had arrived at the Den, carried by a tired-looking lynx that seemed much older than she really was. This war was taking its toll on everyone.

From a clove of trees to my right I heard the desperate, strangled cry of a man in pain. I started to move toward the sound, but when I took the first step into the trees, I came upon a sight that made my knees buckle, by breath freezing as I fell to the familiar body. Red hair, mirroring my father's, was swept across the boy's eyes, closed now forever but so clear in my mind, shining like the prized emeralds my mother rarely wore. His skin, once olive and darkened by the years he spent in the sun was now given a gray sheen and covered with a light layer of dew. My younger brother, my only brother, was dead.

Like our sisters and our father years ago, like our aunts and our uncles and too many friends, Haruno Mitori was forever stilled. I stared at his limp form, willing him to take a breath, and open his eyes whose color would mirror my own. I willed myself to wake from this nightmare. I could not be the last. The last child of Jagara Haruno, who was all the family I had left now. I wanted to scream and weep, but a tigress does not cry. She does not scream or beat the ground or curse the sky. Among my kind tears were considered a disgrace to the dead and shame among the living. Mask of bones, we were told to use. Keep your emotions behind it, keep your thoughts hidden. Smile when you are told to smile, frown and be disappointed when it is called for; never let your true emotions show to others. Never let them see how fake your smile is or how badly you want to burst into tears instead of just frown. Her mask would keep her subjects from seeing just how much her heart broke with each new death. It kept the warriors fighting a war no one could win. It kept me standing when I had nothing to stand for but blood shed. I could not cry for my brother, but I wanted to. I forced the sounds away, forcing my lips not to tremble. Not here among my guards could I let my mask slip. Only a heavy breath escaped me, wanting to be a sigh. I lifted my dry eyes to the guards who stood about me protectively in the small space between the trees.

"Take him home," I ordered, my voice wavering a bit despite my resolve.

"Sakura-sama, you should come back too," I turned to my guard, Shikamaru, captain of the most elite pride in the Feline army, and took in the worried expression on his soft brown eyes. The Jaguar had been my friend for years before he had been my guard, and I began nod assent to his words.

Another cry from the woods made me freeze. I started toward it, but Shikamaru caught my arm just above my elbow.

"Not that one, milady." Normally I would have trusted his judgment without question, but not here on the battlefield. I had been walking these bloody fields whenever I could since I was twelve; I could not avert my eyes when we were in the middle of this chaos and someone was pleading, with what was probably his last breath, for help.

"And why not, Shikamaru?" The Leopard new he was in trouble the instant I addressed him by his full name instead of his childhood nickname of Shika, but he kept on my heels as I stepped around the slain bodies and closer to the voice. The rest of the pride fell back, out of sight in their second forms—Leopards, Jaguars, and Cheetahs mostly, though the occasional Lion would join them from the ranks of my mother's personal guard. — They would take my brother home only when it did not mean leaving me alone here.

"Sak," in return, in knew Shika was serious when he lapsed into the informal and used my nickname, instead if my respectful title or surname, Haruno. Even when we were alone, Shika rarely called me Sakura. It was an entreaty to our lifelong friendship when he used that nickname where someone could hear it, and I paused to listen. "That's the Uchiha; you don't want his blood on your hands."

For a moment the name meant nothing to me. With his hair streaked with blood and his expression a mask of pain, the Uchiha could have been anyone's husband, brother or son. But then I recognized the stark black hair against his fair, porcelain skin, and when he looked up, the onyx eyes that flickered to the bloody crimson of his clan's special gift. The Sharingan. Shikamaru was instantly in front of me warning, "Do not look into his eyes." The boy's eyes returned to the natural black onyx that were a trademark to the Uchiha line, just as emerald was a characteristic of my own family.

I did not have the energy to rage. Every emotion I had was locked behind my mask and I was doing everything I could to keep it there. I could not let the rage out, because sadness and sorrow would follow and the opening I had made would let them all out before I could stop them. The Uchiha had evidently recognized me as well, for his plea caught in his throat, and his eyes closed. I stepped towards him, past Shika who was still watching the ninja with a wary eye, and heard the small slip of movement as my guards moved closer, ready to intervene if the fallen man was a threat.

With all his various scratches and minor injuries it was hard for the medic in me to tell where the worst of the damage was. I saw a broken leg, possibly a broken arm; either one of those he could heal from. What would I do if that was the worst? If he was hurt, but not too hurt too survive? This was the man who had led the soldiers that had killed my brother and his guards. Would I turn my back so the Royal Guard could finish what these fighters could not? For a moment, I thought of taking my knife and putting it in his heart or slitting his throat myself and ending the life this creature still held while my brother lay dead. Despite my guard's protest, I went again to my knees, this time beside the enemy. I looked at his pale face and tried to summon the fury I needed. His eyes fluttered open and met mine.

A muddy shade of red now, the Uchiha's eyes were filled with pain, sorrow and fear. The fear struck e the most. The boy looked a couple years younger than I was, too young to deserve this horror, too young too die. Bile rose in my throat. I loved my brother but I could not murder his killer. I could not look into the eyes of a boy terrified by death and shaking from pain and feel hatred. This was a life: Uchiha, yes, but still a life; who was I to steal it? Only as I recoiled did I see the wound on his stomach, where a kunai had been dragged raggedly across the soft flesh, one of the most painful mortal blows. The attacker must have been finished before he could finish the deed. Perhaps my brother had held the knife. Had he lain dying alone like this afterward? I felt a sob choke my throat and couldn't stop it. This Uchiha was the enemy, but here on the battlefield he was just another brother to another sister, fallen on the field already stained red by millions of generations.

I could not cry for my own brother, he would not want me to. But I found myself crying for this hated stranger and the endless slaughter that I had almost contributed to. I spun I Shika, "This is why this stupid war goes on. Because even when he's dying, you can only feel your hate," I spat, too quietly for the dying ninja to hear me. "If I was in his place, I would pray for someone to kneel by my side," I continued. "And I wouldn't care if that person was Sasuke Uchiha himself." Shika knelt awkwardly by my side. For a moment, his hand touched my hand, unexpectedly. His gaze met mine; I heard his sigh quietly with understanding. I turned back to the ninja. "I'm here; don't fret," I said as I smoothed black hair from his face. His eyes filled with tears and he muttered something that sounded like "Thank you." Then he looked straight up at me and said, "End it. Please." These words made me wince. I had been thinking the same thing just moments before, but even though I knew he was asking me to stop the pain, I did not my hand to be the one that ended another's life. And I was shaken. We hear legend and see shinobi fight and learn of that they had no emotions that they learn to ignore pain. They have no emotions and would rather kill themselves than let the enemy take them prisoner. What I was looking at proved all those legends wrong. This boy could feel pain, he was feeling pain, and he was begging me to kill him. "Sak?" Shika asked worriedly when a tear fell from my eyes onto the ninja's. I shook my head and wrapped my hand around his cool one. For a human, he was freezing. I knew death was not far off for him. I tried to heal him; my chakra covered him from head to toe. All the minor scratches went without difficulty, but the gash in his stomach was coated with poison. There was nothing I could do for him. The muscles tightened, and he was gripping my hand like it was his last anchor to earth.

When I drew the knife from my waist, Shika caught my wrist and shook his head. Quietly, so the Uchiha couldn't hear, I argued, "it could take him hours to die like this." "Let the hours pass," Shika answered, though I could see the muscles in his jaw tighten. "The shinobi believe in mercy killing, but not when it's the other side that does it. Not when it's the heir to the Crow of Stones who ends the life of one of their few surviving Uchiha." We at in the field most of the day, until the boy's grip on my hand loosened and his ragged breathing froze. As I had often done for our own dying soldiers, I sang to pass the time, and to distract him from the pain. The songs were about freedom. They were about children, able to play and sing and dance without worrying that they would be harmed. The song I love most of all, though, was the one my mother use to sing to me when I was a child, before I had been given round-the-clock nurses, maids, servants and guards. It was from long before my mother had become a distant queen with too much dignity to show affection even to her last remaining daughter. I would have given up all the pampering and all the respect I had earned those past few years if I could have climbed into her arms and gone back to a time when I was still too young to understand that my father, my sister and now my brother had been butchered in this war, which had been going on so long nobody could tell anymore what it was about or who had started it. I had heard of Felinya living over five hundred years and humans living to be over two hundred, but no one did that now? Not in a time when both sides slaughtered each other so frequently, and so efficiently. If we went by what the scouts had brought us, only about fifty Uchihas were left and only two lived who had any hold over the throne whatsoever. Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha were world renown, both so feared and so hated that there names were rarely mentioned in polite society. If both of them could be killed, the clan if red eyed murderers would collapse into itself in a power struggle so bloody that it would make this endless war look like child's play. Yet now that there was one less Uchiha, one less ninja, one less killer, I could not be grateful for the loss. All I could do was sing gently the old childhood lullaby called 'Shadows' that my mother had sung to me so long ago.

_I wish you sun shine,_

_My dear one, my dear one,_

_And treetops for you to dance under,_

_I wish you innocence, _

_My child, my child,_

_I pray you don't grow up too fast,_

_Never know pain,_

_My dear one, my dear one,_

_Nor hunger, nor fear, nor sorrow,_

_Never know war,_

_My child, my child,_

_Remember your hope for tomorrow_

By the time I found sleep that night, back in the Den, my throat was tight with too many tears unshed, screams unuttered and prayers whose words I could never seem to find.

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